I Can Take It from Here: A Memoir of Trauma, Prison, and Self-Empowerment

Riveting, honest, and raw, I Can Take It From Here recounts Lisa Forbes's harrowing journey into darkness -- including a fourteen-year-long stint in a maximum-security prison -- and her fierce resolve to understand the effects of the trauma she endured, to take personal responsibility for her actions, and to ensure that her history does not dictate her destiny.

Providing powerful insights into what we as a society need to learn and confront in the ongoing epidemic of mass re-incarceration, Lisa Forbes is a stunning example of an individual who through determination, knowledge and hard work has been able to reclaim her own life.

The youngest of six children, Lisa Forbes grew up in a Chicago housing project where she endured sexual, religious, and emotional abuse as a little girl. A voracious reader, Lisa graduated high school at 15 and went to work as a secretary in a downtown insurance office, became pregnant at 16 and, at 19, unexpectedly and uncharacteristically committed a violent act, stabbing and killing the father of her daughter.

Tackling her early childhood trauma head-on, Lisa's story fills an enormous gap in the current public conversation about prison reform and integrating restored citizens into society, by addressing the most crucial and fundamental question: the root causes of violence.

Readers experience firsthand Lisa's trauma history and her responses to it and learn that her background is representative in a vitally important way: The overwhelming majority of people who go to prison have endured trauma, and those who have not, are almost certain to do so while behind bars.